No discussion of Cleveland's punk scene would be complete without a chapter on Peter Laughner, who helped start half a dozen bands, including Rocket from the Tombs and Pere Ubu. And yet, Laughner, who died at age 24, has not received that chapter, really, until now. A new 5-disc box set retrospective by Smog Veil Records has been released, an event that sent PKM's Todd McGovern in search of the Peter Laughner chapter, using the voices of many who knew Peter well, including Cheetah Chrome, Miriam Linna, Robert Kidney, Anton Fier, David Thomas, and others.
In 1978 I had a weekend and night job in an Akron, Ohio jazz club called The Bank, because it occupied the space of an old bank. They kept all the booze.